UW MUSIC 120 FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards for the UW MUSIC 120 Final Exam, covering theory, opera, historical movements, and 20th-century styles.

Form

The organization of all parts in music composition

Pulse

Stream of equally spaced beats

Tempo

Speed of pulse

Meter

Grouping of strong and weak beats

Downbeat

First beat of group, strongest beat

Consonance

Stable or pleasant harmony

Dissonance

Unstable and unpleasant harmony

Timbre

Tone color; Distinctive sound of each instrument or singer

Note

Smallest unit of melody

Pitch

How "high" or "low" a note sounds

Frequency

Speed of vibration, determines pitch

Harmony

The simultaneous sounding of different pitches

Chord

Combination of pitches, basic unit of harmony

Melody

Succession of pitches that form a whole

Phrase

Part of melody, like a clause in a sentence

Cadence

Resting point of a phrase

Texture

Relationships between the different voices in a piece of music.

Monophony Texture

A single melody where all voices are singing the same melody at the same time

Homophony Texture

Melody with accompaniment

Polyphony Texture

More than one independent melody

Antiphony Texture

Texture with opposing forces

Bel Canto

The style of early romantic Italian opera, emphasizing graceful singing and ornamentation

Coloratura

Showy, melismatic vocal writing

Two-Part Aria

Fast-slow aria typical of Italian Romantic opera

Risorgimento

Italian independence movement, influenced Verdi

Verdi's reform of Operatic Singing

Used deeper male voices to show power rather than light, Lacey voices in Vivaldi's operas

Soprano

High female voice, usually reserved for the female heroine

Mezzo-Soprano

Lower female voice, usually reserved for the temptress or "bad woman"

Tenor

High male voice, usually reserved for romantic hero

Baritone

Low male voice usually reserved for the villain

The Ring of the Nibelung

Cycle of 4 operas by Wagner

Source of the Ring

German medieval epic and norse mythology

Love vs. Power

Central theme of The Ring

Stabreim

Unrhymed, alliterative verse modeled on Icelandic epic poetry

Leitmotif

Musical idea associated with a person, object, or idea

Total Work of Art

The synthesis of the separate arts in opera

Developing Variation (Brahms)

Constructing music out of small, continually developing motives

Rondo

Form with repeating theme and varied episodes (ABACA etc)

Incidental Music

Music that accompanies a spoken play

Symphonic Poem

An instrumental piece in one movement with a program

Pastoral Style

Imitation of simple country music

Pentatonic Scale

Five-note scale, often used in the pastoral style

Mighty Five

Russian nationalist composers based in St. Petersburg.

Characteristics of Russian Nationalist style

Folksong, timbre (tone color) and ostinato (repetitive, unchanging pattern)

French music characteristics after 1870

Understatement, elegance, harmonic color

Modality

Harmonic system based on medieval church scales

Impressionism

Painting movement dedicated to capturing the momentary effect of light

Symbolism

Poetic movement that sought to evoke and suggest rather than state direct meaning

Nonfunctional Tonality

No logical connection between chords, break with traditional tonality

Chromaticism

Use of all 12 notes instead of simply the seven notes of the major scale

Ballet Russes

Dance company for Russian operas performed in Paris

Primitivism

Artistic movement that drew inspiration from traditional non-western art

Cubism

A painting movement that broke down familiar objects into geometrical shapes and got rid of traditional perspective

Ostinato

A repeating mechanical pattern

Amelodic

Texture with only accompaniment, no melody

Second Viennese School Composers

Schoenberg (know others)

Expressionism

Artistic movement that sought to express emotion through extreme, distorted means

Atonality

Absence of any key center, no more sense of consonance and dissonance

Sprechstimme

Speech-singing where the performer slides between notes

Serialism

Form of harmonic organization in which all twelve chromatic notes are stated in a series before any of them are repeated

Tone Row

The order of the twelve pitches in a serialist work

Neoclassicism

Anti-Romantic movement after WW1 that prized order, clarity and discipline and looked to the 18th century for models

Verismo

Italian operatic style originated in 1890's with realistic modern settings, gritty plot, and heavy voices

Exoticism

The use of foreign elements in Western music, often drawn from Asia, Africa, or the Middle East.

Folksong and importance throughout Bartok's music

Bartok found interest in folksongs and collected them over the years by recording folk people sing. Instead of just putting the songs in pieces and put music around them, he incorporated elements of the folksongs to make his own language

Ethnography

The science of recording folk, mostly oral cultures

Blues Progression

$$I - I - I - I - IV - IV - I - I - V - V - I - I$$

Blues Scale

A pentatonic scale with "blue" notes

Harlem Renaissance

Flowering of African American art in NY during 1920's

Inspiration for Still's Suite

Different art including "mother and child" "African dancer" and "gander"

Pandiatonicism

Free use of all seven notes in the major scale

Role of Martha Graham in Appalachian Spring

She is a choreographer and dancer who performed as the lead in Appalachian Spring

Chance Music

Music performed with an element of chance

Integral Serialism

All musical elements (rhythm, dynamics, register, etc.) are controlled by a series, not just pitch. Exaggeration of Schoenberg's original idea

Prepared Piano

A piano tuned with foreign objects (used in Cage Sonata V)

Origins of Musical Theatre

European operetta and NY vaudeville revues

Importance of Show Boat

1st "book" musical where plot is just as important as the music and it addressed serious issues of race and intermarriage

Importance of Oklahoma

Importance of plot, music and dance is equal

Source of West Side Story

Romeo & Juliet

Verse-Refrain

Basic form of musical theater songs

Classical Elements in West Side Story

Reoccurring motiv, Opera writing and Recitative-Aria

Minimalism Elements

Accessible, Tonal, Simple harmonic language, Has regular/continuous rhythms, Structurally/Texturally simple

Importance of Star Wars

The composer John Williams took Star Wars back to classic Hollywood

Rough Cut

The finished cut of a film but with no sound added yet

Spotting

Deciding where to place musical cues

Cues

Discrete musical sections with a film

Optical Sound

Technology of encoding sound visually on the celluloid film, which made sound film possible

Bel Canto Opera

A opera that is using bel canto form of graceful singing and ornamentation